


While Day Blinks In the Sky So High

by Ivy_in_the_Garden



Series: Like a Line of Light [4]
Category: Cain Saga and Godchild
Genre: Ableism, Brief mention of implied violence towards animals, Comfort, Consensual incest between adults, Edwardian era, Emotional Repression, Gratuitous Feels, Gratuitous commas, Homoeroticism, Incest, It's 1902 for everyone keeping track, Like a LOT of saneism, M/M, No one sleeps in their own bed and Neil just has to live with it, Not really sure what else to tag this as, Poisonous mushroom hunting, Recovery, Saneism, Scar touching, Sharing a Bed, That chronic illness life, That's a tag now, That's an important distinction here, You're Welcome, all the good tropes, and I suddenly got feels again, i just want them to be happy ok, it's just the boys in a pastorial setting, only I know the convoluted timeline of this AU, quarantine is so boring my god, quarantine is still very boring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:40:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23403136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ivy_in_the_Garden/pseuds/Ivy_in_the_Garden
Summary: Cain avoids his responsibilities. Jezabel does the same.
Relationships: Jizabel Disraeli/Cain C. Hargreaves
Series: Like a Line of Light [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/875460
Comments: 6
Kudos: 8





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is so, so incredibly self-indulgent, and I just have no excuses for it. I want them to be happy. It might help to have read the other installments of this AU, but live your best life. "Undo this Storm" just gave me so. Many. Feels. I just want these sad, tragic people to be happy. 
> 
> Any plot is accidental.
> 
> Title is from Robert Burn's "Ca' the yowes," which is such a lovely pastoral love poem. This is the second time I've borrowed a line from it, but it's just so good.

"Does Neil know what you're up to?" Jezabel watches me from his desk in his study, upon which there is an opened copy of one of his medical journals, severely underlined. 

"You have a fever," I say, earning myself an exasperated sigh in return. "Can't your love letters to the editor wait?" 

Jezabel rolls his eyes, just in case I missed his sighs. "It's a _mild_ one. And besides," he says as he picks up his pen, "this one is particularly egregious."

"Oh no."

I settle down beside him, as he details some little controversy in the medical field that I pretend to follow. Halfway, he pauses and closes his eyes tightly for a moment. 

"I know," he replies, opening his eyes to my look of concern. "I know you and Neil would be happy if I decided to be an invalid for the rest of my life."

"I'm not so sure it's a decision."

Jezabel surveys me evenly. "Then what is it?"

I shrug, sorting through my words. "Uncle Neil's just worried that you'll—"

"Damage my _ill_ health, is that it? Is that what he's calling it now?"

"He doesn't mean any harm."

"He should just say what he means. He means that he's afraid that I'll go madder than I already am and disgrace the family further." His gaze falls to the opened journals. "I suppose he'd be happiest if I just gave all this up, and resigned myself to being some half-dead waif. Well, I won't. I cannot be content just watching the world go by. I want it all. I have done things that my _colleagues_ only dream of. And if I have to live in this horrible world teeming with _people—"_ He breaks off, giving at the edge of his desk a hard stare of anger and misery. 

"Well, then you should be quite happy to know that I plan to dissuade you from none of it," I reply. "But we really ought to start alternating our scandals. Can't give them two in the same week."

"Oh, you should talk." Jezabel uncovers a clipping from yesterday's _Times_ , enclosed in a folded letter with Uncle Neil's scrawl. I recognize myself in the blurry black-and-white photo. "Dashing Earl Hargreaves was at the scene of the murder," he reads, meeting my gaze periodically with a wry grin, "but the real talk of the evening was the lady seen entering his carriage—a Miss Evelyn Darcy, if the rumors are to be believed." 

"I can explain," I begin.

Jezabel laughs. "Can you? Because Neil seems to think it needs no explanation."

"The old Duke was much more liable to confess in Miss Darcy's presence."

"Her _seductive_ presence, no doubt."

I smirk. "Do you want to be part of the next scandal? She can come here to spend her company in the presence of _dashing Earl Hargreaves_ ' brother. We could drag this out for several weeks at least. A dashing romance—no, a love triangle!" I pause. "Or would that make your gentleman caller quite sad?" 

"He's not my gentleman caller," Jezabel corrects with a small smile. "He's just a friend who helps tend the injured animals here."

I briefly consider the joy of mercilessly teasing him over this. "Right then. Do you reckon you can help me with my new project?"

Jezabel sets his pen down, intrigued. "What is it?"

* * *

Twenty minutes later, we're in the forest near Jezabel's house. It's heavy and peaceful. Two sparrows eye us suspiciously from the bough of an apple tree, long gone wild when the forest encroached on the land. Little streams run free from an unknown source over mossy logs, and something rustles through the Queen Anne's Lace. Jezabel idly picks some of the wild raspberries as I glance over the forest floor, smiling at the rabbit tracks in the mud.

"They're over there," Jezabel says, noticing my interest. He points beyond a pocket of wilting bluebells to a feathery yew, its small, yellow flowers still tightly curled in buds. A ghostly rabbit stares back, its long ears twitching. "There's a warren nearby."

I start towards it, interested in seeing the place for myself, but Jezabel grabs my arm. And an old fear reignites itself in my blood.

"No," he says. "Leave them. They have a hard lot." Then he sees the fear in my eyes; for a moment, he's confused, and then he lets go of my arm, half reproachful, half ashamed. 

"Do you ever name them?" I say to restore the peace and calm my racing nerves, climbing past a fallen log.

Jezabel pauses, bracing himself against a silver birch. "I think that's where things went wrong in the Garden. Adam had no right to name what he could never understand."

A little harvest mouse wrinkles its nose at us, disdainfully, from the cover of a sprawling blackberry fortress. 

"Maybe she has another answer," Jezabel adds, gently amused. "Maybe Adam didn't even get the names right." He leaves those blackberries alone, focusing on a mushroom so pale it is almost luminescent.

I join him. "Is that it?" I bend to inspect it, pulling it free with my gloved hand. White gils, perfectly smooth white cap. 

"Destroying angel," Jezabel says, peering over my shoulder. "There should be more of them around."

I pocket the specimen. I'm keen to see if I can extract its amatoxin. It's deceptive in that its symptoms—stomach pains, vomiting, diarrhea—seem to improve right before its victim dies of liver and kidney poisoning. A worthy addition to my collection. I scan the area for some funeral bells, those demure, brown mushrooms, but they elude me. As do the angel's wings, curled white mushrooms that grow on tree stumps. I suspect this is far too south for them; I'll have to go up to Scotland to collect those.

We trudge through the forest, Jezabel stopping to point out whichever animal is currently hiding from us, and before long, I have amassed a respective starter collection: destroying angel, fly agaric, fool's funnel, even some panther cap. 

"I hope Neil never discovers you haven't destroyed your collection," Jezabel says. "Now that you're _Earl Hargreaves_." There's more than a note of bitterness under his carefully careless tone. 

"I am," I reply, unsure of what else to say. I've come into my inheritance at last.

He searches my face for something, some confirmation. Whatever answer he finds is lost to me. "So you are," he says. "You're Earl Hargreaves now."

(The favorite, still and forever, marked to history in a way that he will never be.)

"Do you think you will ever miss yourself?"

His question takes me aback. 

He fixates on a fern, uncurling in the speckled shade, as he continues. "You can't be Cain Hargreaves anymore. You'll have to be Earl Hargreaves and sit in the House of Lords." He pauses. "I do not think I like this place. It's too full of ghosts." He pauses, thoughtfully. "There is me as I was, but that won't ever be again. And yet—it is. I can feel it everywhere here. It is as if I have become two people: myself and then myself as I was. Have I become my own ghost?" 

I shrug, uncomfortable. "I don't know," I manage. 

"Well, that must be something then, coming from _you_." He crosses his arms. He watches a mossy log intently. "He wrote about you. It's there in his study."

"At Cornwall?" 

Jezabel shakes his head, gesturing towards the house. "It was locked off. It always is, isn't it? Like Bluebeard's closet."

I can easily surmise what happened. He probably spent a few afternoons up there, reading the notes of a dead man and going into a bloody fit over it. 

"There's a folder in there of all the drawings I made for him," Jezabel continues slowly, carefully. "Foolish little things. Empty seashells from our time at the seaside. Some leaves I thought were beautiful. But in the last drawer, there are photographs. Five of them. They're all of my bedroom, after—" Jezabel bites his lip. "After—he killed—" Jezabel shakes his head again to rid himself of the memory. "And I destroyed my bedroom," he quickly finishes. 

My blood runs cold. "What?"

"They're _souvenirs_." Jezabel watches me intently. "He took souvenirs. And the hide."

Oh no. 

"It was all some kind of grand joke to him." Horror twists Jezabel's face. "It was always a joke to him."

As my heart quickens from the mention of Father, I'm struck by my own inarticulateness. Of course it was only a joke to Father. But I cannot bring myself to say anything. I don't know if I ought to bridge that aching gulf between us, but Riff was always better at that than me. I feel as awkward as a doll, waiting to be told what to do next, how best to feign my humanity.

"We can bury him," I say, catching myself at the last moment. Animals aren't _it_ to Jezabel. 

Jezabel surveys my face for the catch, but finds nothing. He still shakes his head a little, tightening his crossed arms. "No. Not yet."

And I wonder if he's taken to carrying around that scrap of hide, as if that can bridge death and misplaced guilt, but I suppose guilt makes for a memento as well. "Ok," I say at last, unsure of myself.

As we turn to head back to the house, I almost glimpse my looking-glass reflection, caught there for just a moment in that leaf-lined puddle.

* * *

While Jezabel changes behind the silk folding screens, I study one of the paintings in his bedroom. In the center is a woman in a field of Easter lilies, gazing upwards, hesitant, as an angel waits nearby, anointing her head with another lily. I suppose it's better than a reproduction of Hieronymus Bosch and all his nightmare-ish, tortured animal-human sinners. 

Jezabel eventually emerges, tying the sash to his dressing gown. This one is dark blue with pale rannuculi along the hem. 

"I suppose you've decided to start taking Dr. Rumsfeld's advice?" I say. 

Dr. Rumsfeld has recently decided on a simple plan of keeping Jezabel's lungs functional: a walk to engage and strengthen them, followed by a rest to prevent overtaxing his body.

"I haven't found it lacking," Jezabel concedes with a small smile. "Yet."

"High praise indeed," I say, as we settle onto the bed. We climb under the covers, and it is such a wonderful thing to rest. I had almost forgotten it in all my busyness. "It must be so nice to rest everyday," I say, unthinkingly.

"Is it?" comes the rather sullen answer from behind me. "I can think of a dozen things I'd rather be doing."

I pause. "But your health."

"That was never a concern before," he replies bitterly. 

I sigh. "You are so difficult." I turn over to face him. "Just let me dote on you. Let me have that." My heart trembles with fondness and fear as I brush away some of the hair from his face. "Let me be Cain Hargreaves here, at least." A pleasant stirring of desire moves through me, but I ignore it. That is done. 

Jezabel matches my sighs with a smirk. "Oh, who's the petulant one now?"

His muscles tense under my touch, as I stroke the place above his clavicle, humming a song I've forgotten. I stop at the end, unsure if I can touch his back. "Can I," I ask carefully, softly. "Can I see..."

He shrugs with an air of feigned nonchalance and slips off his nightgown. And I do the same, so that we are both bare before each other. Jezabel reaches out to caress my throat, and for a moment, I'm taken aback, but then I close my eyes in pleasure. Then I return to my task of running my hands along his body. His skin has finally lost its sickly gray, underfed pallor, and his hair no longer falls out when I comb my fingers through it. 

We settle back on the bed, tucked under the covers again as I trace his old surgery scar, that pale, bisecting line, before resting a moment on the hard-earned softness of his body. I wonder if his animal patients ever know just how important and loved they were. I suppose he realized he could either starve himself to death, slowly or not, or he could make the most of his hated existence. But still, it must be hard to care about a body that cannot help but break down. 

This is not to say that this change was not accompanied by the loss of an entire china set. I finally talked him out of destroying the second set in his fit of overwhelming fear and discomfort by telling him that he was frightening everyone with his display, including Uncle Neil, who was fully convinced he was going mad again. Then we took brisk walks after meals, after that. Mary was so afraid she didn't come back to the table for a week, and I can't say I've forgiven him for that. Later, Mary put her little, chubby hand on mine and said that she understood, with a feigned grace that only saddened me. 

I trace the scars on his back gently, not wanting to invoke anything particularly stirring, but rather relishing how his muscles gradually loosen under my touch. We're a tangle of heated limbs and soft breath and wanton heartbeats, bound together irrevocably. As my fingertips brush against his skin, I pretend that this moment is eternal, that neither of us will never die, that he will always be here to be my troublesome mirror. 

He doesn't fall asleep after this but instead rests for a spell, his eyes closed. I browse one of his medical journals in the meantime, flipping past various reports, smiling at the small, black annotations.

A grey tabby cracks open the door and curls up next to us, purring. It kneads the covers with alternating paws, its green eyes half-closed. Jezabel stirs a little at this. His face softens when his gaze falls to the cat. 

"Better?" I ask.

He shrugs. 

Anderson takes this moment to knock at the door, waiting until Jezabel has re-dressed to enter the room. He has with him an afternoon tea tray, laden with all the usual accouterments: cream tea, scones, a strawberry jam, clotted cream, some cucumber sandwiches, toast, and a curious little jar.

"It's marmite," Jezabel says. "Neil swears it's an alternative to beef tea."

I try a spoonful, grimacing at the overwhelming saltiness. "I think I'd rather have the tea."

"You'd have it on toast with butter. Not straight from the jar," Jezabel gives me a wry look, "oh illustrious and worldly earl."

I give him a smirk in response, but my heart is glad and I am happy to spend my afternoon with him, in the ephemeral summer light.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shhh. This is a supremely self-indulgent chapter that just snuck in here, as they like to do. Or: recovery is hard and trust is scary.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First section has some mildly upsetting content with references to past medical violence.

> _Jezabel_

There's a blinding, bleeding pain in my head and I am trying to push Father away from me, but the hard back of the chair forces me towards him and— 

I wake up to the still emptiness of my bedroom and the soft inhales of Alan, sleeping beside me. I curl into myself, as my head throbs with a phantom pain that radiates from my orbital socket. Pressing a hand to my aching head, I retch onto the floor, narrowly avoiding the bed. Then, I fall still, my chest heaving, disgusted with myself.

A gentle touch on my arm informs me that I've woken Alan up with my little display. He sleepily regards me, growing steadily more awake as he assesses the situation. 

"Here," he says, moving to wipe away some of the remaining bile from my mouth with a damp washcloth, but I turn away from him. "Wait here," he says, leaving the washcloth with me. Then I'm alone again with all my ghosts.

The fluorescent, acrid bile seeps through the washcloth, but that does nothing for the smell. I throw it in the sink, intending to rinse it out not because I particularly care for Anderson's feelings or sensibilities, but because I want to hide the evidence. That telltale weakness from vomiting tugs at my limbs, but I pay it no heed until I've finished my furtive task and the water runs clear. I then leave the washcloth in the sink and crawl under the covers again, feeling used and hollow, a nasty, acidic sourness in my mouth and throat that water will not ameliorate. 

Just when I have resigned myself to an uneasy wakefulness, Alan appears again, holding two glasses. One is a freshly warmed cup of cocoa and the other is— 

"It's a sodium bicarbonate solution," he explains, offering it to me, "for the taste."

As he presses the little glass into my hands, it strikes me that, yes, he would be aware that a sodium bicarbonate solution would help. And this strange little gesture stuns me, because I cannot understand it. I understand the chemistry involved, that is simple enough for even amateurs, but this I do not understand. He touches my arm to help me to the sink, but I only shake my head. I want to manage this little task on my own, if only to prove to myself that this burden is still mine alone. So, instead, he waits, sitting on the bed, while I rinse the sourness away. I'm not sure I want to be looked at with concern anymore. 

Staring at my own bleary-eyed reflection, I turn over his gesture in my mind, searching for the price of it and a sinking realization comes over me when I realize that there is none. There is no expectation, no reciprocation, only a little gesture of... of what exactly? It's not romantic love. I suppose it might be friendship, as strange and incomprehensible as that might be. Something twists inside me at the thought. I'm not sure I enjoy the notion that someone might care about my wellbeing. That makes it more difficult to hide the ugly parts. 

He helps me back into bed, holding me gently against the trembling weakness in my body, and when he is satisfied that I am comfortable, he presses the glass of cocoa on me. "What happened?" he asks at last, watching me with his lovely dark eyes.

"Just a bad dream," I lie, but I let him pull me close. The pressure of his body against mine soothes me in a way, and the tension slowly washes away. I try a little of the cocoa; it's not overly sweet, but still sweeter than I'm used to. I return it on the nightstand, and when I glance back, Alan has fallen asleep again, his dark hair careless against the pillows. I play with a few strands, not unaware of the fact that he resembles Cain far, far more than Neil would personally like, but where Cain and I are slender, he is of an average build. 

I wait a little in the darkness, waiting for something that never comes, and then I settle back down under the covers, under the pleasant weight of his arm thrown over me. I still, however, cannot sleep, even with the warmth of the cocoa inside me. And in the darkness, I can almost see Father again, smiling at the foot of the bed. _You're really a foolish creature, Jezabel._ A sharp exhale of smoke. _Did you really think I could die so easily. I'm more than you will ever be. The Lord has plans you'll never know about._

I shake my head. What nonsense. I shouldn't be entertaining this, but my gaze still falls to Alan's sleeping form. Surely not? No, this is nonsense. He's not one of Father's agents, not that there are any of those left anyway. All that Delilah was died in the rubble and dust. 

_Are you so eager to find out, then?_

And a terror begins to rise in me. _Go away,_ I want to say _._

 _It's all very convenient, isn't it?_ Father continues. _Once is a mistake, but the second time you really ought to be prepared. But that's not how you learn, isn't it? You never learn. That's why I didn't choose you to be my heir. You're quite dull deep down, blindly dull in all your childish loyalty. And now you offer your neck again to the blade._

"Go away," I manage this time. "I don't want to hear it. This is only a game I don't want to play anymore."

_Why the repetition, child? Do you imagine you'll gain some mastery over it this time?_

I throw the covers over my head, but that's doesn't deter Father.

 _He's going to betray you._ And for a moment, I can almost imagine him there, sitting on the bed beside me. _He's going to betray you because it is better to put your faith in the Lord than in a man._ A pause. _I wonder what form it will take? What will he kill? Perhaps he's already killed an animal just for you. Perhaps he's killed it and cooked it already for tomorrow, just so he can see what it looks like to break your pathetic little world again. That's easy enough._

When I throw back the covers, desperate to stop the horrible thoughts, there's no one there, only empty air. _Or maybe you enjoy the repetition? There's a certain pleasure in knowing the safety of a familiar pain._ I try to fall asleep again, but it eludes me in favor of that gnawing terror. _You should have put your trust in the Lord, child. You know what people are like. People are cruel, people are callous, and they will use you because there is something wicked in you that draws them near. They only pretend to care about animals, so they can get close enough to hurt you._

I leave the bed, pacing now against the exhaustion. I have half a mind to swallow the bottle of opium pills on the nightstand if only to have some reprieve from Father's ceaseless ramblings, but then I think about how jarring it will be for Alan to find my corpse lying beside him in the morning. Or maybe, I consider, staring down at the bed, I ought to end this terrible tension for both of us, and when the servants wake up and find me here, with his body slowly cooling and his blood draped across me, I'll tell them it was in my nature all along.

That's not true, though, is it? 

Clasping my dressing gown to my body, I flee that suffocating house for the coolness of the forest, trudging through the bordering meadow with its ghostly flowers made even more luminescent in the darkness. I've forgotten my glasses in my haste, and so navigating it is trickier than usual, but I know it well, like part of my own heart. I rest by the whispering creek, finally able to think again, but only the aching pain in my insides registers.

_What are you doing out here?_

I don't have to look up to know it's my older sister, but I don't bother to reply, curling in on myself, miserable and tired. 

_You'll get sick_. _You might even catch pneumonia again dressed like that._

"Not you too," I reply, fully aware that I am living out Neil's worst nightmare of talking to someone no one else can see or hear. At least this time I have the decency to look the part. I suppose it would horrify him more to learn that I have no desire to be "cured" of my _tragic affliction_. 

She sighs. _You're impossible sometimes. Go back inside. No one's going to hurt you._

I almost remind her that she's the one who was **_killed_** by someone she trusted. Sometimes I think she's the one who got the better deal, instead of dying little papercut deaths—absurdly painful, but insignificant. She says nothing in response, and if I try hard enough, I can almost imagine her there, sitting in her navy-blue Sunday dress, her bonnet shading her face and two long blonde braids resting on her back.

Dawn sprawls across the treeline, softly golden. Soon the servants will be up. I wonder what will happen when they find me missing. I suppose I'll have to return at some point, but for now, i cannot bear it. I am so weary of dealing with Father and how he permeates everything I am and everything I have done. To offer myself up to my own knife would only confirm his power over me, even now, even in death, but to live seems to pretend that he does not still _, still, **still**_ hold such sway over me. 

Just when I feel as though I am about to be sick again, Anderson appears, impeccably ready for the day. If he finds something unusual about finding me in such a state, playacting Ophelia in her final scene, English repression dictates that he says nothing on it. I suppose he's wondering why on earth anyone would let me go free and if this is not proof that I ought to be confined to an asylum and have horrible things done to my body in the name of a "cure." I wonder how absurdly nice it must be to simply exist in the world without having to constantly think about that threat; God, I wonder if he knows just how envious I am of him. I cannot imagine just being allowed to exist. Instead he tells me about a call to the house. "Shall I tell her you're indisposed?" he asks carefully.

"Indisposed or predisposed?" I retort nastily. "I think my uncle has some opinions on that matter." When Anderson does not reply out of politeness, the hot flush of shame comes over me, and I try to conceal it. "What was the nature of the call anyway?" I continue. "I don't treat people. I have no interest in that."

"She had found an injured duckling down by the river, and had wanted to know if you could fix it."

Before Anderson can finish, I've already started back up to the house, aware that I will have to sneak in through the back entrance, lest word starts spreading around here about my _eccentric dress and habits_. But I cannot leave a little creature in pain and fear because I want to entertain my ghosts. Anderson has, to his credit, already laid out my clothes for the day on the back of a chair. I've just pulled on my dark green waistcoat, when Alan comes in, relieved to find me again but also bemused. 

"There's an injured duckling," I explain, running the brush quickly through my hair. "I'm going to examine her."

"I can take a look," Alan offers, worry on his face, but I shake my head. I can pass, I can pass all the same. I can pretend that the night never happened and push away the knowledge that I could have started this morning as a known murderer, rather than just a suspected one. 

And I do, because there's nothing else left to do.

* * *

The duckling is nervous in my hands, and I work quickly to make sure she's put in the least amount of stress. The dog bite is cleaned out with an application of antiseptic; fortunately the wound is shallow. The duckling is about a week away from being able to be survive on her own, in a fortunate turn of events. 

"She'll live," I tell the frightened little girl in front of me. She's ten, with large brown eyes and a blue sailor dress; sometimes her fingers toy with a strand of her long, chestnut hair in worried interest as she watches the exam, before she hurriedly remembers herself and folds her hands in her lap. 

"What do I do with her?" she asks. 

I start to put away the unused supplies, while Alan keeps an eye on the duck. "She can stay here, and in a week or so, she'll be better and can go free."

She nods and reaches for her coin purse, but I wave that away. "My work is supported by my _generous benefactor_."

Alan pauses thoughtfully beside me. "Earl Hargreaves?"

"It's the least he can do, quite frankly." And with that, I take the duck to a room that's already set up from animals to recover. As I check that she has sufficient bedding, food, drink, and a shallow pan to swim in, Alan joins me, his shirtsleeves rolled up. 

"You're overworking yourself," he says gently. "You should rest. Come down to London with me. Sit in on a class and mercilessly bully the next crop of students." He pauses. "I'm sure if you wanted to, you could be a guest lecturer."

I almost tell him that he wouldn't understand why I "overwork" myself, that I have to catch up on all the things I wanted to do when I'm not able to, and settling for a life of doing less when I've been accustomed to doing more is simply unbearable. Instead I say, "I doubt the college wants to see me again. If the dean had his way, I would have been banned." I shrug. "Some people aren't simply aren't aware of the most pressing moral issue of the day."

Alan frowns. "Whatever happened to those dogs?"

"I don't know," I reply in my most innocent tone, the one I had used in front of the dean when he accused me in his office of _committing acts of terrorism_ against the college. _Liberating_ dogs destined to be vivisected isn't terrorism; it's a moral duty. "I imagine, though," I continue slyly, "if someone had rescued them, they might be in very good homes in the area." There had been a certain pleasure in watching the dean grow more and more frustrated as he tried to pin the "theft" on me, on account of _my inflammatory_ _opinions_ , trying to figure out if I had acted alone, all to no avail. If there's anything my time in Delilah has taught me, it's the importance of a blank face and a sweet voice. 

"Weren't you worried at all?" Alan asks, with a curious look. "The dean is an intimating man."

I have half a mind to take off my glasses and show him the scar near my orbital socket that can only be seen when I'm asleep, and tell him that one loses a considerable amount of fear after being tortured by one's own father. The terrors of ordinary life are almost mundane in comparison. Being interrogated by a pompous bat of a man is thus comedic. But I don't tell him any of this, because it all feels so distant and most of all, I don't want any more looks of pity. It seems that the only outcome, rather fortunately, from that attempt is periodic migraines, because what I really crave is yet another reason to be told to make my life smaller. 

Alan brushes against my forearm gently. "Is there nothing I can do to persuade you to come down to London with me?"

I consider the vulnerability of falling asleep next to him in his flat, but a pit forms deep in my gut at that thought. I shake my head, and at the crestfallen look that moves across his face for a moment before he suppresses it, I remember what Father told me, amused, when I returned back to Delilah with a teenage girl's blood on my face and her eyes in my pocket: _You have a cold heart, don't you, child?_

* * *

After I finally release the duck to her own journey in the wild, I travel to Cornwall instead, tired of being alone with all my ghosts. My older sister keeps me company on the trip there, although I try to limit our conversations to moments when I'm certain we're alone. I don't need more tense admonitions from Neil about my _rather unfortunate condition_ and the importance of concealing it. Neil tried to hide it from me, but I did glimpse a newspaper clipping sent in from the family about how I am supposedly the illegitimate, deranged offspring of Augusta—so close to the truth. But then again, Father was a saint to everyone who didn't know him. 

Cain is in the library, perusing some ancient, calfskin-bound text on poisons; it's a wonder he still has anything left to read on poisons at this rate. But when he glances up at me, for a moment, fear chills me as I look into a face that belongs more to Father than him, the softness of his youth quickly fading into Father's hard lines. And then I catch sight of his eyes, his beautiful gold-green eyes, and relief comes over me. 

Cain gives me a worried look and I shrug it off, but he seems unconvinced. 

I settle beside him, awkward but also wanting to spend the afternoon next to him. My fingers trace along the curve of his face in a featherlight facsimile of tenderness, and as they round near his eye, he stiffens, expecting them, after all these years still, to plunge straight into his eyesocket with a practiced, violent grace, but it does not come. And, I suppose, the he decides to take what has been offered. 

He returns the gesture, losing himself in the warmth of my skin, his other hand unconsciously resting on the inside of my clothed thigh as we enjoy our stolen moment, the soft daylight streaming lazily through the castle windows to cleanly fall along the lines of the library. And we sit there with our uneasy desire curling and unfurling through us like bougainvillea, fragile and sharp. My lips part, and that little, involuntary gesture thrills and haunts me. I know that he would comfort me in this way, but it would be comfort for him alone. We lie there, curled on the chaise lounge, delighting in each other's body, until the warmth is too much to bear and it flushes across his face and alights in his eyes. In that moment I know he would make much of me if I let him. 

But we pull away and the moment dissolves once again, not without a tinge of regret. 

"Some deer have come to the forest recently," he offers at last, and with that we head down, ignoring the servants' preparations for a dinner tonight, no doubt for one of the family. I have no intention of attending; I'd rather pretend I wasn't here, than endure several hours worth of questioning. 

The wild rabbits pull away from us as we intrude on their sanctuary, their black eyes fixed on us and their hearts quivering. The air cools and the shadows cross Cain's face as we trudge through the undergrowth of feathery ferns, Cornish wortmoss, and eyebright in bloom. I want to kiss him there, anything to settle the warring thoughts in my head, but I do not. Instead we come to a strange clearing with flies streaming about.

Cain swears. 

There's a doeling, weak and struggling in vain on the ground, bright blood matting her side. I wave away the flies, trying to assess the damage. One dark eye watches me, as she pants in fear. "We have to move her," I tell him, my heart sinking at the gunshot wound. "The bullet needs to come out." I pause. "Give me your coat."

She kicks at us weakly as we carefully shift her onto Cain's coat and bring her back to the castle with Cain carrying one end while I get the other. 

"Where do we put her," Cain asks when we've fumbled into the hall past the stares of several servants. Garrett in particular gives me a look that suggests that while he would be morally opposed to putting a pillow over my face in the night, he would not object to finding me dead one morning. I suppose I'm ruining all his secondhand aspirations for the house to reach the same greatness it had under Father's parents, instead of its current reputation of a half-derelict castle run by an aging man, a careless womanizer, a teenage girl, an earl coming into his own, and an _eccentric ward_ who left an almost respectable career in medicine to play horse doctor. 

"The dining room table," I reply, just to further annoy the servants; since they clearly want a show, I won't deny them one. No doubt the family also needs something to keep them entertained anyway. To my infinite pleasure, Garrett blanches at the thought of a live, bloody deer on the dining table. I suppose he thinks it's fine when they're dead, though, the hypocrite. "It's the only table large enough."

Cain only gives me an amused smirk in response. "We're having a dinner later."

"Now isn't later," I say. "I need room to work, and their dull little party can wait."

We lift her onto the table, brushing aside the laid-out dishes to Garrett's increasing horror. If we keep this up, I suspect my little rivalry with him will come to an end quickly, though perhaps not in as a satisfying manner as I might have hoped. Cain finds my Gladstone bag, and we set to extracting the bullet after administering an analgesiac. Every servant who walks in on us quickly walks back out, except for one footman who watches us quite intently, intrigued. 

I've just begun to stitch up the wound when Neil comes into the dining room, aghast. 

He keeps shaking his head in disbelief, his pristine dinner clothes a stark contrast to my daywear. "You must be mad."

"Yes, I had almost forgotten," I reply nastily, over a new row of tiny black stitches. "You are directly in front of the gaslight." 

"He was very persuasive," Cain says nonchalantly, as if he isn't also about to shoulder some of the blame for _letting_ _me act on whatever mad thing enters my poor little deranged head_. I can already imagine the next batch of letters. One day, I think I'll start answering some of them back. 

At the noise, Mary peeks in, and behind her is one of her aunts and a cousin Mary's age, the dull one I think. Mary's face brightens at the scene, and she slips in, her pink evening dress floating around her. "What are you doing?" she asks. 

"Our duty to the animal world," I reply simply, tying off a knot. "I imagine you will have your dinner party if Garrett doesn't die of heart failure from the disgrace of it all."

"Yes, but what is it that you do?" the cousin pipes up behind Mary. She has Augusta's dark, curly hair and light blue eyes. (It's strange sometimes to see all the permutations in the family and weigh them against one's self. For all my light coloring, is there someone I resemble?) "Aren't you the veterinarian?"

"I certainly hope I am," I reply wryly. "For the deer's sake, at least."

She pulls up a chair, delighted. "Oh, Mother has told us stories." She grins at me. "Is it true you rescued those poor dogs at the college?"

I offer her a mysterious grin of my own and as I finish tending to the deer, the strange realization comes over me that perhaps not everyone in the family is out for my blood. And I am unsure just what to do with that, but my heart lightens. 

* * *

Cain's bedroom is pleasantly cool as he undresses in the dark, more than slightly tipsy, and I change into a lavender silk dressing gown with wisteria embroidered along the edges. My skin finds his under the heavy covers, and he presses me close to him, murmuring something that I cannot understand. And I only close my eyes to his insufferable warmth, resting my head next his, listening to his breath even as he falls asleep, torn and pained that I cannot preserve this moment for any of the lonely nights when I wonder if he is happy with who he has become—I am torn and pained and yet also relieved that this stolen moment is just for me and me alone. 

I curl into his arms all the same. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted something soft and pastoral. And I had remembered that there were not really any scenes of wildlife rehabilitation, and that needed to be corrected. Cuddling is such a good trope that it needed to be in here twice. As always, all mistakes are mine and I'm only a vet in my imagination.
> 
> Thank you for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> All mushrooms written about in this fanfic are real; any errors are most certainly mine. I know all of you are responsible people, but for my own peace of mind, please pick mushrooms responsibly with an expert. 
> 
> You all narrowly missed out on my godawful rendition of a 200k fluff House/Godchild crossover, purely because I cannot write mysteries, let alone medical mysteries, and I'm ok with that. 
> 
> Technically, "The Angel's Message", the painting by George Hillyard Swinstead referred to in the third section, didn't exist until 1905, but I think it's really pretty. So here we are.
> 
> I'm not sure marmite was marketed as a spread this early on in its history, but it was certainly promoted as a vegetarian alternative to beef tea. Because vegetarianism was a thing in the Edwardian era, even if the upper-class Edwardian diet was very meat-heavy. Again, any inaccuracies are all mine. 
> 
> Thank you for reading, as always. <3


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